WORDS

the Father has sent
the Spirit as Keeper of
the words of the Son

JESUS

The Master made His people's hearts rejoice

Because they answered to the Shepherd's voice.

They learned through grace that He would not despise

The poor and weak, or turn away His eyes.

They came to Him with all their needs and fears,

Assured He would attend with open ears.

And it delighted Him that He should smell

The myrrh and nard which proved they loved Him well.

His hands had handled men in direst need,

So that through Him they might be healed and freed.

His feet were bearing Him upon the path

Towards Golgotha and God's awful wrath.

But ere the Saviour bowed His head to die

He uttered one triumphant mighty cry.

I wrote this when thinking about Psalm 115: 4-7

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands:

They have a mouth, and they speak not; eyes have they, and they see not;

They have ears, and they hear not; a nose have they, and they smell not;

They have hands, and they handle not; feet have they, and they walk not; they give no sound through their throat.

SON

The Son of David, intent

On His way to Jerusalem,

Stood

For a blind beggar’s cry.

The Son of God, bound,

Yet with incisive power,

Stood

Silent, before man’s judge.

The Son of Man, glorified

Before His witness’s vision,

Stood

Ready to welcome His People.

The Son,

Heir of all things,

Set Himself down

On the right hand of the greatness.

WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT!

In moral waste and emptiness

The whole world lies in night,

Ignoring God's desire to bless,

Repelling heavenly light.

Where could God find what He had sought?

Only where He, in Christ, had wrought.

But those who, by His work, receive

God come near in a Man

He owns as His, as they believe

According to His plan;

God has an answer to His thought

In men where He in mercy wrought.

Within them God displays that flesh

Cannot achieve His will

He breaks the bands which would enmesh

Through Sin and Satan still,

And shows what He Himself has brought

To being through what He has wrought.

Waiting as God's designs unfold

Vessels for Him expand

In their capacity to hold

Under His gracious hand,

That He may joy in vessels fraught

With treasure, through what He has wrought.

Oh glorious answer to God's ways

And all that He has done  

Men, giving Him eternal praise,

Conformed to His own Son,

Fit for a scene where there is naught

But God and that which God hath wrought.

VARIATIONS

Views from our holiday cabin or nearby, over a few days

VARIATIONS: JOSEPH

A

i

He found a man in whom his heart could trust

Who would accomplish each detail of the work;

Joseph was he to whom all men could turn  

He could supply the answer to their wants;

And so he named him as Saviour of the World.

ii

As made perfect through suffering,

Suitable in every detail,

Holy, harmless and undefiled,

Tested and tempted in all things,

He has encountered the darkness,

The Leader of our Salvation.

iii

See, it sinks in red splendour,

Invading the sovereignty of darkness;

See, it departs into the winter,

Leaving earth in its barrenness.

It comes, the morning looms,

Night's shroud is torn;

It comes, the summer brims,

Saved by its healing power.

B

i

Pullulations of plants, actions

Of animals,expenditure

Of energy   all source themselves

On one centre of light and heat:

Hyssop and cedar, ant and man

Sustained in sap or blood, flowing

Because of one emanation.

ii

Thus all the people found a man:

"Go to Joseph" was the king's counsel.

The great administration flowed

From the granaries his wisdom had built.

By this foresight, and this organisation,

He acquired the name "Sustainer of Life".

iii

The Originator of Life having been killed

Out of that death whose power could not hold Him

Issues the life we dwell in now as His.

Death has no claim on those who are His kin;

The darkest tomb His victory has lit;

He holds death's keys and leads us out to bliss.

C

i

And how did Abel know how

To offer righteously? How did Enoch understand

How to please God? How did Abraham see

Christ's day? Or how did Moses judge

What was the reproach of Christ? Faith

Was their secret: by it they looked forward to

Christ, Leader and Completer of Faith.

ii

Whence is the joy that stirs these people's lives

As if a harvest had filled them with delight?

What power has risen to obviate decline

And all the forces that caused them to divide?

Those walking in the darkness have seen a light;

Those dwelling in death's shadow have seen one shine.

iii

After the time of concealment,

Necessary famine, or gloom,

His delight was to let them know

Himself, his love and his supplies:

Greater than all of secret dreams

These were what designated him

As the Revealer of Secrets.

SEEING JESUS

The Baptist, as he saw how Jesus trod,

Exclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God!”.

His faithful martyr Stephen saw Him stand

As Son of Man at God’s right hand.

The Spirit makes Christ’s glory fill our gaze -

We are transfigured by its blaze.

And soon our days of distance will be past

And we shall see His face at last.

FACE

There is nothing that

I would rather do than see

The face of Jesus.

WORSHIPPER

I have seen a man in weakness, like an old and windswept tree

Lacking all the polished leaves that once were there,

And he seemed to have no purpose, and no other cause to be

But to be, before his God, a worshipper.

You could offer him a fortune, you could offer him a throne

Or the best the world or nature could confer

And to him they would be nothing - less than all that is his own

And that makes him what he is - a worshipper.

As his family support him, like lianas that would bear

One from whom their earlier strength and stature were,

They behold him as an object of their tenderness and care

And their love - but God beholds a worshipper.

If they stripped me to essentials, if they peeled me to the core,

Pruning things of flesh to which I can defer,

The rhetoric, and man's fancies, and my self, and pride, and more

Do you think that God would find a worshipper?

DOVES

He came in smallness,

Gentle and sensitive,

To be this sacrifice -

The turtle-dove.

And as a dove

Finding rest for the sole of its feet,

The Holy Spirit

Had descended upon Him.

He sees His Bride

In her uniqueness -

His undefiled,

His dove.

And sends His own

Amid the world’s wolves

To be sensitive and gentle,

Guileless as doves.

LOVE

Love worked to form a universe

That Men with Love should dwell therein;

Love worked in grandeur to reverse

The early ravages of Sin;

Love made, in wisdom from above,

A place where it could work in Love.

Love saw the depths to which Man fell

When he rejected Love for lust;

Love took the action to repel

The fallen Man Love could not trust;

But Love had purposed long before

To bring Man's soul to Love once more.

Love came to Earth to show to Man

Love's perfect way bring Man back;

Love, that had first conceived the plan,

Was subjected to Man's attack;

Love, that endured Man's works of shame,

Went willingly to bear the blame.

Love found some answer to the way

In which, through Love, it had come near;

Where Love had been in full display

The Few found Love cast out their fear;

Here though the many might deride

Love has where it may now abide.

From an ascended place on high

Love sent the power to link the Few

To its abode and draw them nigh

In Love whose touch is always new.

And Love has come to shed abroad

Within their hearts the Love of God.

Love welcomes us to its domain;

Paternal Love surrounds us there,

With Love to lead, Love to sustain,

Love for Love's own with whom we share.

Love finds its perfect rest above,

Enjoying those secured by Love.

And every day Love shows the way

By which the Few may humbly go;

And Love rejoices to display

Itself to them that they may grow.

Till with the saints Love takes above

We glory in eternal Love.

GOD'S ANSWER

Affronted by sin’s intrusion - Eden

Besmirched, Man condemned, death

Let loose, God fell back

On what was better - His plan:

Redemption in Christ Jesus.

Affronted by Man’s sin - Golgotha,

The acme of human evil - willing

Thralls to Satan, God fell back

On what was better - His Son

Raised by the glory of the Father.

Affronted by Satan trenching on

His rights in His house publicly -

Lordship wrested, God fell back

On what was better - the Church,

A bride adorned for her Husband.

FRESH GLORY

The Man who is for God's delight
Walked through this evil scene.
Men's jealousy sought to demean
The One whose life portrayed
All that God wished to bring to light:
And thus fresh glory was displayed.

Despise, rejected and denied,
And grieved to be betrayed,
Unjustly judged and crucified:
Men vilified my Lord.
But more - He bore God's judgment sword:
And thus fresh glory was displayed.

When Stephen's word convicted them
The whole sanhedrim railed,
But Stephen simply knelt and prayed;
While stones and pride assailed
He asked the Lord not to condemn:
And thus fresh glory was displayed.

WITNESSES

The cross of Christ, on which He bore

The sins of all who own His claim,

Displays that God, for evermore,

Has finished with the man of shame

And shows the fulness of God's grace

Which has secured our heavenly place.

The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son,

Propitiation for all sin,

Is witness that the work is done

Which makes us free to come within

The presence of a holy God

To know His love; to give Him laud.

The water from His smitten side

Is witness that His work's complete;

And in each mind that work applied

Ensures for us this world's defeat,

For we may be, while here below,

Made clean, by virtue of that flow.

HEBREWS 2

What is man? – that old Adam,

Fushionless as tiller and guard –

And the son of man...? – One

Who has sown and reaped; One

Who is securer and protector:

The true Adam.

But we see Jesus – faith grasping

More than a true report – and the splendour

Of the accompaniments of royalty,

Because the Lord His God delighted

In Him, – crowned with glory

And honour: the true Solomon.

Once the warrior led God's people

To an earthly inheritance, having

Suffered along with them: One now,

The leader of our salvation, leads

The “many sons to glory” -

The true Joshua.

Now the One who makes reconciliation,

And the Head of the priestly family,

Glad of our association with Him,

Having taken His place with them,

Merciful and faithful High Priest

Is the true Aaron.

A prophet the He would be like

Shepherded His people from bondage,

Having declared Jehovah's name:

Now He declares the fuller light

– The Father's name – to His brethren

As the true Moses.

If someone who had known the shadow

Of death, and the brightness of regality,

Was the sweet psalmist of Israel,

Who but Christ, who invaded death,

And dwells now in God's light, could sing

As the true David?

The father of all who believe traversed

The land where his seed would dwell. The Lord,

Expressing, “I will trust in him”, journeyed

That the children God gave Him should be

Wonders too, dwelling in faith's demesne,

Is the true Abraham.

30/12/12

EXCLAMATION

thirty secret years,
hidden, evoke the father's
fond exclamation

THE SAME

Yesterday –
Before the foundation of the world –
The Same.
Today –
Enthroned at the Father's right hand –
The Same.


To the ages to come –
In rule or in subjection –
The Same.


Yet the Personage
To secure God's purpose,
“Became flesh ...”


To be Saviour,
And to display God's love
“Became dead”.


To sustain those
Sustained by divine affection
“Became surety
of a better covenant”.

THE SERVICE OF SONG

You who have known redemption's grace,

Rejoice and sing with one accord

To Christ, who brought you to this place:

Intone hosannahs to the Lord!

You who know love the Spirit shed,

In hearts where He has come to dwell,

Have your affections freshly led

To sing unto the Springing Well.

The Father's presence may amaze:

Yet here through grace His sons belong,

Where Christ the Leader of the praise

Declaims that Name in joyful song.

Yet we discern a greater voice

Since love can rest in love's results:

Hear God, who sees His saints, rejoice

For His own voice of song exults.

5 May 2013

GLORY

If men saw a servant's place
As demeaning, Christ took
The servant’s place and made it
Glorious.


If men saw the cross
As a spectacle of shame, there
The Son of Man was
Glorified.


If for me the paths of glory
Lead but to the grave, for Christ
The way of the grave
Led to glory.

DEPEND

Depend, my soul, on His staff and His rod
Which will not quiver or bend.


Depend, my mind, on the One whose thought
Your depth cannot comprehend.


Depend, my life, on Him who laid down
His life for His friends.


Depend, my spirit, on the grace
That gently condescends.


Depend, my faith, on the Victor
Entitled to ascend.


Depend, my love, on the Man
Who will feed, guard and tend.


Depend, my heart, on the love
That loves to the end.

PAUL

As Paul look back upon the way
In which God smashed his carapace
Of human virtue he could see
That all had been achieved through grace.


As he looked forward to his end
With sufferings he would have to face
He was assured he could depend
On the sufficiency of grace.


And as he knelt within his cell
And found Christ's presence filled the place,
Already knowing all was well,
He gloried in abundant grace.


So his last blessing to the saints
When writing truths that were sublime
Or help against the world's constraints
Was”grace be with you” every time.

A NEW SONG

As He walked a perfect pathway 
Where sin's power was manifest,
And expressed God's grace and mercy
So that heaven could attest
That the Father was delighted
And the Spirit was at rest
There was nothing out of keeping
With the holiness of God.
 
As He walked the paths of sorrow,
Thwarting Satan's power to tempt
From the will of God His Father
And what malice could attempt
Through betrayal, and denial,
And injustice, and contempt,
There was nothing out of keeping
With the holiness of God.
 
But when John was elevated
To the mountain to behold
The celestial culmination
Of God's workmanship unfold
In the Lamb's wife - that great city
That is formed of purest gold:
There was nothing out of keeping
With the holiness of God.

The chorus of this I have "borrowed" from a book read recently. 

THE END

And then the end; when even death is quenched,

The great bereaver ultimately bereft,

All enmity, perpetually dispelled

And God has rendered Him His recompense

As under Him all things are subjected;

Thus we will see this final excellence

When He gives up to God the kingdom then

And He, the Son, is subjected Himself:

So in the sight of all the universe

God’s ultimate will grandly be expressed -

In Him God’s purpose finds its eternal rest:

God all in all, supreme and immanent.

This concludes the 120 parts of "Touching the King" which I have have been posting since the beginning of this year. As I wrote when I first finished writing it, several years ago, 

"What came with prayer, comes to you with prayer, to join with your prayer".

Grace be with you all, and thank you for the encouraging remarks.

LORD JESUS, COME

Lord Jesus, come, appear in majesty

And demonstrate Thy power where Thou wast slain.

Where once Thy shame was seen at Calvary

Now let Thy splendour be lavishly displayed.

Let Thy renown be ardently acclaimed

Upon the earth where men despised Thy Name.

Like the ascendant sun dispense Thy rays,

Glory of love and dignity of grace;

Like the transcendent sea, wave upon wave,

Unfold Thy power that all may be amazed:

Lord Jesus, come; assert Thy royalty;

Assume Thy throne; for a millennium, reign!

LORD JESUS, COME

Lord Jesus, come, amid Thy holy myriads

Bringing Thy sunshine where everything is wintry,

Bringing Thy sweetness where everything is bitter.

Blessing will flow without an intermission

And all the earth will flourish in Thy kingdom:

Gone will be pain, disease, distress and sickness;

None will be hungry, dissatisfied or thirsty

While bliss will penetrate each ecosystem

And agriculture will pullulate with richness

Even upon the highest of the hilltops.

What metamorphoses mankind will witness

When Thou art come to actuate God’s vision!

LORD JESUS, COME

Lord Jesus, come, and take Thy faithful wife

To be with Thee as Thy resplendent bride:

She is secured at an amazing price

And cherished by the vigour of love’s might

Through and despite the ravages of time.

None but Thy church can be for Thee Thy like

Nor can approach so close to the divine.

What lasting joy her presence will incite

As close to Thee where nothing can divide

And she will have Thee as her paradise;

Take to Thyself this finest paradigm

Of all Thy love acquired for its delight!

LORD JESUS, COME

Lord Jesus, come, Thy saints are waiting for Thee,

Their love ensuring a deep and growing longing:

Thou art the One whose precious blood has bought us;

Thou art the One through whom we have adoption;

Thou art the One by whom our hearts are conquered.

Thy loveliness retains us in our orbit

About Thyself the Bright Star of the Morning

Whom now we see as eminently lordly,

And justifying each title we might posit.

We long to see Thy face since Thou hast drawn us;

We long to hear Thy voice of rapture calling;

We long to praise where Thou hast been exalted.

Away for a few days to Buckie - which will probably include a needed break from computers!

If the Lord will - and He has not come to take us!

LORD JESUS, COME

Lord Jesus, come, and take us from this scene

Where we are touched by maladies which pierce;

None but Thyself can finally relieve

From every ill by which we are bereaved,

From every woe by which we are made weak,

From every sin by which we know defeat;

Only by Thee in whom we are redeemed

Can we obtain our ultimate release;

Only by Thee and what Thou hast achieved

Can we acquire an everlasting peace;

Lord Jesus, come and save us, we entreat,

From sin and death and pain and loss and grief.